PARIS, Aug 23: French diplomats familiar with France’s evolving Middle East policy say that “important changes” are in the air, changes that should affect “the highest levels” of the Palestinian Authority, and the word “abdication” is being used with regard to Mr Arafat.

They say this with regard to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin speaking on the telephone this weekend with, among others, Yasser Arafat and his prime minister Mahmoud Abbas.

President Arafat, who has managed to retain the presidency of the Palestinian Authority largely through the unfailing support of President Jacques Chirac, could very well be on the way out, they say, as could also be Mahmoud Abbas, guilty in the eyes of France, indeed of President Chirac, of the crime of lese majeste, having refused to stop over in Paris, as had been expected by the French, following his recent visit with President George W Bush at the White House.

The timetable for the changes could be anywhere from this weekend to the third week of September when President Jacques Chirac is expected in the United States, at the United Nations in New York, but also possibly in Washington or at Camp David for a reconciliatory meeting with President Bush.

“The die is cast,” say the French diplomatic sources, and a decision satisfactory to both US and French heads of state, usually at loggerheads over Middle East policy, could be announced imminently with regard to “significant changes” in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

The announcement should also include the proffering by the United States of more solid support for a truly autonomous Palestinian state, a subject about which Mr Chirac has been constantly on the telephone with his US counterpart, as has of late been foreign minister de Villepin with his, Colin Powell.